Fold gallery is pleased to present a two person exhibition of new paintings, drawings and sculpture by Willem Weismann and Lutz Driessen

Earlier this year these two artists collaborated on a book of drawings which will also be shown at the gallery. Herein the artists produced 10 halves of a double-page drawing with the general idea of still life, each completing the other side of each drawing. This is similar to the Surrealist game "exquisite corpse", where the design of the whole image is not subjected to the hand of the artist but to chance. In contrast to the Surrealists, they looked at each other's drawings and attempted to respond to what was already there. This resulted in a surprising mix of drawings foregrounding the artists' compatibilities and points of departure. The gallery space will operate in the same vein, establishing a tension where questions about subject, motivation and representation are answered and questioned in various ways.

Weismann's large colourful paintings tell the fragmented tale of a world in which people have stark and, unfailingly optimistic methods that work counter to most rational ideas of the logic of survival and comfort. Echoing the ethos of the painting's inhabitants is a processual devotion to accumulation evidenced in a painterly maximalism. What almost goes unnoticed is his effort to include every act of painting, from the palette of potential colours, to the cleaning of the brush, onto the canvas itself. Merging these two ideological forms, from the obsessive accumulation of his survivors, to his hyper-inclusive painting process, culminates a world-view that favours accumulation over reduction, and champions the creative act of developing methods to devise a new logic of daily ritual and usefulness.

Driessen's work is based on equal parts drawing, sculpture and painting. Simplified objects and isolated body parts reappear in different guises. Large format drawings, ceramics and colourful small paintings explore the boundaries between figuration and abstraction in ever changing still-lives. His work evolves in layers as he performs a balancing act of weighing surfaces, lines and patterns within and across his work. In this process of reduction and composition much of Driessen's work paradoxically gains character and personality, as small dramas with tragic humour creep in.

Willem Weismann (1977) lives and works in London, he graduated with an MA from Goldsmiths College in 2004. Recent exhibitions include shows at the Museum for Modern Art in Arnhem, The Netherlands, Hayward Gallery Concrete Space and Vegas Gallery both in London.

Lutz Driessen (1977) lives and works in Cologne and studied under Albert Oehlen at the art academy in Düsseldorf. Recent shows include solo presentations at Art Cologne, Galerie Matthias Jahn in Munich and Galerie Hammelehle und Ahrens in Cologne, this is the first time his work is showing in London.